One good volcanic eruption puts out more CO2 than a decade of human emissions. It is ridiculous to think reducing human CO2 will have any effect.

Answer:
Not only is this untrue, but it couldn’t possibly be true given the CO2 record from any of the dozens of sampling stations around the globe. If this were true, that individual volcanic eruptions dominated human emissions and were causing the rise in CO2 concentrations, then these CO2 records would be full of spikes, one for each eruption. The fact is, it is a very smooth and regular trend.

“Volcanos Emit More CO2″ was first published here, where you can still find the original comment thread. This updated version is also posted on the Grist website, where additional comments can be found, though the author, Coby Beck, does not monitor or respond there.

Irrelevant to the issue – the basic premise of the hypothesis (that Anthropogenic CO2 is the cause the slight global warming of the last 100 years). This hypothesis not supported by empirical evidence and has failed to predict anything, the two cornerstones of testing a scientific hypothesis – it has failed both. A “climate sceptic” is not one who doubts that the atmospheric CO2 increase is man-made, but that the insignificant increase of this minor atmospheric gas has anything to do with our changing climate. A “climate denier” is not the same as a holocaust denier (though the global warming gang would like to think so) just people who believe that our climate changes, as it always has, just a little sceptical of your claim that “we done it”.

Rob – if you can show any empirical evidence that CO2 causes global warming (all historical empirical evidence shows it doesn’t), or that the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis has actually predicted anything correctly please let me know. Slogans are a hallmark of religion. Regurgitating a cliche is meaningless and rather trite, but shows that the followers of the AGW religion are loath to confront the science.

m34, some basic science for you – CO2 is a greenhouse gas, a trace gas in the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect is largely influenced by water-vapour, clouds and to a very minor extent by CO2. It is thanks to the greenhouse effect that our planet is habitable and not a ball of ice like Europa. The AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) religionists say, some solely based on mathematical models, but the vast majority, purely on faith, that the increase of this trace gas, due to our burning of fossil fuels, is the sole cause of the slight temperature rise today compared to average of the last 100 years or so. Quite ignoring the prime mover of our climate (directly and indirectly) – the sun. This is the central dogma of the AGW religion. The second part to this dogma, which is like unto it – this global warming is solely bad and catastrophic for humanity and life on this planet. This totally ignores the fact during the warm periods on this Earth, when it was several degrees warmer than it is today, life thrived and flourished and that even a minor cooling like the little ice-age proved catastrophic for Europe. The questions I asked remain unanswered – asking whether I believe CO2 is a greenhouse gas is rather inconsequential and petty.

The volcanic flux has not been clearly measured for mid-ocean spreading ridges. Your arguments above that the CO2 graph is smooth precludes volcanoes as being a significant contributor to CO2 is false. The majority of volcanic activity occurs along the ocean spreading ridges as a steady release, not intermittent eruptions like found amongst continental stratovolcanoes. I don’t see how the trend of increasing CO2 can be proven as being man made until we have physical measurements CO2 flux from the spreading ridges.

This is the central dogma of the AGW religion. The second part to this dogma, which is like unto it – this global warming is solely bad and catastrophic for humanity and life on this planet. This totally ignores the fact during the warm periods on this Earth, when it was several degrees warmer than it is today, life thrived and flourished and that even a minor cooling like the little ice-age proved catastrophic for Europe.

But Rich, during those wide swings in temperature, major extinctions took place. There were winners and there were losers. Just because *some* life will thrive if we crank up the heat of the globe does not mean that the planet will be able to sustain life as *we* know it. It will be of little consolation to me that “life” still exists in 200 years if whats left of our descendants have to share the bulk of the planet with crows and cockroaches.

Perhaps someone with direct knowledge can weigh in, but CO2 from mid-ocean ridges doesn’t pass a couple of initial smell tests.
1. We know how much fossil carbon we’re burning to a fairly high degree of accuracy (because the folks who mine/pump it keep track of their sales). It’s more than would fully account the measured atmospheric CO2 increase. Therefore the net natural flow is *out* of the atmosphere. If the oceans were also outgassing CO2, there would have to be staggering forest growth all over the world to “eat” all that carbon – and there isn’t. Indeed there are pretty decent estimates of how much carbon goes where in the carbon cycle, and right now there’s a significant flow from the atmosphere to the ocean. Read all you can about carbon sinks. One link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sink
2. You said it – it’s a pretty steady release. Are we supposed to believe that the mid-ocean ridges became more active as the industrial revolution got going, and became more and more active in parallel with human industry?

Coby.
I’m not sure why you would even attempt to disbunk this myth about volcanoes. The whole thing is just a link in a continuum of nonsense from the flat earth society – sort of like the creationist argument, and it goes something like this:
The earth isn’t warming.
Well, the earth may be warming, but its just the sun etc.
Well, it may not be the sun, but it definitely isn’t CO2.
Well, it may be CO2, but it isn’t manmade CO2, its volcanoes etc.

Once you debunk the volcano argument, there will be a next one, and a next one, and a next one ad nauseum. I think the time has arrived to call a spade a spade and just stop even listening to these morons. They will not be convinced, just like you will never convince a creationist that they are wrong, no matter how much evidence you present.

Oh, I forgot. The next stages of denial are:
Well, it may be manmade CO2, but it isn’t enough to worry about.
Well, it may be a significant change, but we will adapt.
Ok, maybe we won’t adapt, but cap and trade (ETS in Australia), isn’t the way to go.

Mandas, it’s not about convincing the deniers is it?. How does one cure willful ignorance and /or paranoia?. Nah, these deniers know it doesn’t matter how stupid their contention is, if they keep repeating it over and over, eventually naive people begin to believe them.

I think addressing these ridiculous canards, is better than letting them go uncontested. Even if they do cause one to smack one’s head against the wall.

the truth of the matter is that CO2 is soluble in water and for centuries it has been absorved by the oceans, and by the huracaines and storms, but is also true that the volacno activity has increased in the last century or so, we find sleeping volcanoes waking up, plus we have the warming of the ocean waters caused by the subacuatic continous eruptions, we can not deny that men is doing his part but nature is far exceding human involment.
the consumption of fossil fuels is a problem of availability for this reason we should increase the use of natural energy which earth has plenty of, why going for sun energy if in the core, earth has over 5000°C constantly, no nuclear fussion would be needed as well

The ice caps are melting from down under not from the top, the waters of the oceans are heating up but due to the constant eruption of volcanoes, any one has the heat meassurments at Mauna Loa’s coast where the volcano dumps the flow? also a volcano is erupting constantly about 6000 mts. deep near Hawaii, the tourist guides on the island tell you of a new island being formed for which they already have a name and the USA has claimed propierty when it will surface some 100 years from now
this heating causes more clouds that cover the sun expossure thus the green house effect plus the total heat calories content of the ocean is so high that even by 1° the change in the enviroment is tremendous.
why are the norwegians (or is it the swiddish) making a noah’s ark trying to collect all the seeds of known vegetables on earth?, someone around somewhere knows something and are keeping it close from general knowledge

@Enrique Valle:
Please point us to the evidence that volcanic activity has increased in the last century (note also that eruptions of subaerial volcanoes actually DECREASE the temperature of the atmosphere).

Please also point us to the evidence that shows the ice caps are melting from down under.

You are free to have an opinion, but let’s first get the facts straight. You can then determine whether you have to revise your opinion.

Regarding the Norwegians: they are aware of the dangers of global warming, which includes a loss of biodiversity. Hence their attempt to create a ‘Noah’s Ark’ for seeds.

to Marco….
let me just give you 3 examples in Colombia, South America
one was the RUIZ volcano (volcan nevado del Ruiz)
it erupted in 1993 and was dormant for more than 200 years
the second also in Colombua, the volcan de Huila has erupted these last year twice, we did not know it was a volcano as there was no record of eruption
and the 3rd was the Volcan Galeras made eruption twice in the last 15 years but it was dormant for more than 100 years
the snow caps on them are melting from underneath as big caverns of ice are being formed it has become a tourist atraction to go there and walk “under” the snow.
On the surface, the same amount of snow and chill as usual.
i am sure if i go around the globe i could find many more like them

Sorry, Enrique, but anectdotal evidence is no evidence. You can find plenty of examples of erupting volcanoes, but you can also find plenty of examples of prior active volcanoes that have been dorment all through the 20th century. I am, however, somewhat puzzled by your reference to Nevado del Ruiz. According to my sources it erupted in 1985 and prior to that in 1845. A similar issue I found with Galeras, which according to my sources has erupted MANY times in the 19th and 20th century, and most certainly has not been dorment for 100 years. In fact, along with Ruiz, Galeras is considered the most ACTIVE volcano of Colombia.

And of course, active volcanoes will see snow caps (which is not the same as ice caps) melting. However, snow caps are not just on volcanoes. In fact, most (melting) snow caps are NOT on volcanoes.

And let’s again repeat that volcano eruptions are known to DECREASE global temperatures (but they need to be large to have a discernable effect).

Marco, you could be right about the snow capped mountains, this is why i said about the “nevado del huila” which now is also a volcano, about the Ruiz, it was called the sleeping lion until its last eruption but one thing is true the glaciars it had on top melted down to about one 3rd of the original size ever since the eruption
and the volcanos under the pacific??? , they are heating the water !!! little by little the calories injected to the water causes evaporation and the clouds cause the greenhouse effect, in Bogotá when is very clear the night is extremely cold (freezing piont) the crops freeze, when is cloudy, the temp. is more benign, it’s been like this always, and once again carbon dioxide CO2 is soluble in water as in soda pop, the storms, (tornados, Hurracaines and so on), ocean waves etc. help in the absortion as much as the green forests, if you could give me your email, i’ll send you my essay ont the idea mevalle @ cable. net. co without spaces

@Enrique Valle:
To blame volcanic activity for global warming through a cloud-induced greenhouse effect is…well…rather questionable.
First of all, there simply is absolutely no evidence that submarine volcanic activity has increased (and remember: subaerial volcanoes are cooling the atmosphere).
Second, are you aware of the amount of energy required to heat the oceans? And you are claiming something that comes from the deep ocean.
Third, clouds are warming at night, but will be mostly cooling during the day (since they block sunlight reaching the earth). Overall clouds probably are warming, but so far the effect has been found to be minimal, and cannot explain the observed warming.
Fourth, sodapop is filled with CO2 using a high pressure. Ever left a bottle of cola open for a few hours? Not much fizz left, eh.

In short, never mind your essay.
BTW, I hope you are not the one who started the petition to take back Al Gore’s Oscar. If you did, I’ll definately have to put you down on the list of deluded souls. Some people apparently are not aware that even though Gore was there to ‘accept’ the Oscar, it actually went to the director.

about the volcanic activity on the ocean floor, the americans have discovered an island being formed by a volcano they have claimed the propierty and have given it a name, suppose to surface within 100 years, (they tell you of it if you tour the Big Island of Hawaii) about the heat needed to increase the temp of the ocean?, yes it takes a very long time… but what is time anyway isn’t it relative? plus the fact it becomes trigonometric in terms of increase, the first degree takes longer than the second and so on.
and last… i was not the one who started the motion against Gore’s oscar i don’t give a thing, nor would i know how to do, he found a way to make his living, 100K or more dollars per lecture is a great way of making it.
Men’s involvement in the overheating of the planet is not a denial, but is not the only reason… is one of them, minimizing the involment would not help much as earth itself is doing most of the job, we must addapt to the developments as we have done so far, unfortunately men has learned to control nature’s natural overpopulation controls such as the plagues etc. but is the way it is… the result is the overpopulation we have so far.

Ian: let’s make it clear… CO2 is not the only contaminant we also have ethanol, produced by the flatulance of the cattle (millions of them) and the disposed waters, plus carbon exisit in all living creatures, (we breath it out) organic chemistry is all about carbon means CO2 can be existent in most living elements of earth.
now let’s also make it clear, i am not clearing men’s destructiveness on earth, i am only saying we shall not carry the total guilt, nature is doing most of the job. but for one reason.. nature’s self control is being overdone by men, we passed from 1.5 BB people on earth 100 years ago to 6.5BB now and such a large growth has consecuences, nature is looking for a way to denfend from this, in the old days it was a plague (bubonic plague killed more than 2 MM people around 1920)or a war, today there is no such a thing, plagues have been under control, (aH1N1 has killed less than 10K and it was declared as a total world pandemic) and we are amazed when we hear of 10 soldiers being killed in action, not that i feel there should be more, but 2 or 3 hundred years ago the main profession was being a soldier and a battle would bring some thousand death and there were many battles, earthquakes would destroy entire cities with it’s people in them, today science has learned to overcome such destructions….
the rest?… may be men will self destruct by nuclear activity or who knows how….

Shorter Enrique: “I have no concept of the relative orders of magnitude of various climate effects so I’ll throw out some unrelated examples of cruel nature and man’s inhumanity to man, apparently to make CO2 seem like less of a problem.”

@Enrique:
Apparently there is someone with the same name and similar lack of understanding of climate science:http://www.petitiononline.com/2007scam/petition.html
“The Take Back Al Gore’s Oscar Petition to Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was created by and written by Enrique Valle”

it seems someone has the same name or is using mine for unknown purpose, i live in Colombia South America and my visits to Miami, Fl. where the “other me” has signed, are considered seldom …. i feel is each one’s freedom to think or consider what he/she feels is right, if he/she gets a prise for his work he deserves it, even thou many may not consider it fit, is the priviledge of freedom.

today the news was that the UN accepted that they gave false news with no scientific proof that the glaciars will be melted by the year 2035 quite interesting, it shows that all the bull- sh.. of the warming is not based on science but on the pocket, many trying to make a living out of a scandal
CO2 disolves in water and the ocean changes the chemistry and uses the carbon in it to produce food for the plancton which is the beggining of the food chain

enrique
I will forgive you for some of the nonsensical things you say because english is obviously not your first language. But that doesn’t excuse you for making idiotic comments that have no basis in rationality or evidence.
And could you please let me know where to get some of those cows that fart ethanol (post #30)? I reckon I could make a killing if I could somehow extract it without getting drunk or blowing myself up.

I have objection Global Technology Blog that the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use results in the emission into the atmosphere of approximately 30 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year worldwide, according to the EIA. The fossil fuels emissions numbers are about 100 times bigger than even the maximum estimated volcanic CO2 fluxes.

“…plus the fact it becomes trigonometric in terms of increase, the first degree takes longer than the second and so on.” – enrique valle

Wrong.

It takes exactly as much work to heat the same amount of water from 35 to 36 as it does to heat water from 75 to 76, under the same conditions.

However… Due to increased evaporation rates from hotter water which act to ‘leak’ heat away from the water, for a constant heat source, it actually takes LONGER to heat water at higher temperatures by one degree…

It is interesting that IPCC just put out a report that they “may” have been wrong because the “warming” seems to be stalled for the last 15+ years even though CO2 has continued to rise.

Also interesting is NASA’s recent report that concluded that the CO2 in the atmosphere may actually not be insulating the earth but reflecting radiant heat and keeping the earth’s surface from warming.

The most controversial, apparently, is that historical studies indicate that increases in CO2 are a result of global warming lagging behind the warming, rather than causing it, by about 800 years.

Even more damning is the 60% increase in Arctic ice this year along with the report that the ice pack in the antarctic is growing thicker rather than thinning!.

Bruce Frank, it is not so smart to come on a website where there are people who actually do not fall into the trap of listening to pseudoskeptics, but actually check what is REALLY said. You have a Gish Gallop of errors and misdirections packed in a mere 127 words that is almost baffling – if we hadn’t experience this many, many times before.

By necessity I will need to keep it short:
1a. The IPCC have not yet put out the report yet, so that’s an error
1b. There’s nothing in it about “may have been wrong”, rather, there is a lot in it about the issues with short term variability. This is misdirection/misapprehension

2. Well, this is both right and wrong. The NASA report discusses the thermosphere, which has almost zilch relationship with the greenhouse effect. The misapprehension was so grievous that even Anthony Watts had to react (look for “A misinterpreted claim about a NASA press release, CO2, solar flares, and the thermosphere is making the rounds”). The fact that you fell for this, Bruce, should make you think a little bit more about the sources you use.

3. This is false, true, and misapprehension. That CO2 usually lags the initial warming observed on Antarctica is well known, and in fact predicted by climate science before it was observed. This is the well known relationship between Milankovitch cyles and the glacial-interglacial cycles. What certain people will never tell you (YOU, Bruce, so again think about that), is that the Milankovitch cycle impact has stopped while the warming just goes on and on and on for another several thousands of years: that would be the CO2 feedback effect, which fortunately(!) is logarithmic. Also, those people do not tell YOU that on the NH the CO2 increase does not lag, but *precedes* warming. And finally, those same people do not tell YOU that there have been several events in the earth’s history where there has not been observed a significant lag (the PETM is a good example)

4. False, false and overall misdirection. Last year was the lowest of the lowest possible Arctic ice extent, far below the downward trend since about 2000. This year’s minimum is slightly above that long-term downward trend, and not 60% larger. Also, the total ice volume is about the same as last year, so that’s another inconvenient thing the pseudoskeptics won’t tell you. Which brings us to the Antarctic: here *sea* ice in winter has still slightly expanding (but far, far, far below the decrease in the Arctic), but Antarctica as a whole is losing land ice.

So, Bruce, care to explain to us why you listen to the people who come with one-liners that are either false, misapprehension, or so lacking in actual details that you become so misinformed? In that respect point 3 is most telling: that supposed “controversial” fact was *predicted* by climate scientists, which makes it rather uncontroversial. It is as if you are saying that the cosmic background radiation is something controversial, not knowing that its existence was predicted from the “Big Bang” theory.

Arctic ice started the year at 12.885 million km2.
Arctic ice reached a high of 15.127 million km2 on Mar 15
Arctic ice melted down to a low of 5.099 million km2 on Sep 13.
Arctic ice is increasing again and is now 5.24 million km2.

minimum extent 2012: 3.41 million square kilometers
minimum extent 2013: 5.10 million square kilometers
You do the math yourself, but a small hint: if you get “60% more”, you need to go back to primary school to learn basic math.

Not sure what you mean by that, Pauline…
… or do you mean, “if we cherry-pick the data, can we manufacture an erroneous and misinformational graph that suits our narrative”?.

The amount of ice at both poles is trending down.
In the Arctic, it is trending *steeply* down.

The reason for this is (or should be) very obvious:
There is a radiative imbalance between solar radiation coming in and radiation being emitted by the Earth.
This imbalance is causing heat to accumulate on earth.
This accumulated heat is responsible for the increase in surface temperatures as well as the increase in ocean heat content.
The increase in ocean heat content is obvious from the thermal expansion of the oceans.

All things considered, what is occurring is very easy to understand and perfectly obvious to most people bar a certain minority who suffer from a combination of psychological denial and intellectual deficiency that prevents them from accepting this reality.

They justify their intellectual insufficiency with bizarre stories of scientific conspiracies.

PaulinMI, I did not feign ignorance at any point. It’s bad enough that we had a Bruce Frank who repeated falsehoods and that those were supported by the freddykaitroll, but your willful misrepresentation of what I wrote is one level worse.

Arctic ice started the year at 12.885 million km2.
Arctic ice reached a high of 15.127 million km2 on Mar 15
Arctic ice melted down to a low of 5.099 million km2 on Sep 13.
Arctic ice is increasing again and is now 5.24 million km2.

“….When one spends more time attempting to score points and demean rather than educate and inform, one is a hack…..Most here are self demonstrating hacks….”

That is just disingeuous nonsense Paul. People like you and Freddy do not post here in order to become educated. You post here for the purposes of attempting to score ideological points or simply to troll.

Well, mandas, Craig and marco, thanks for further making my point.
It’s ok to be a hack. But, does it help the people of the earth? Or the planet itself?

Some would suspect that this type of hackery suggests you’re being compensated or have interests aligned with those groups you (claim to) despise. By adding to the hand waving and confusion, the situation remains unclear and suspect.

PaulinMI, it is my experience that the perennially confused, which includes you, cannot be educated. Whatever we say you will fail to understand. I therefore do not intend to make an effort to answer your challenge, because by definition, with you as the recipient of the explanation, you will not understand that explanation.

“…By adding to the hand waving and confusion, the situation remains unclear and suspect….”

On the subject of hand waving – how about you tell us all what your point is Paul. Is it that the extent of the Arctic sea ice has increased by 60% (or so) this year? Let’s just assume for a second that is true – so what?

If you are really trying to make some sort of claim about climate change based on a single year trend, then just wait there while I call for the men in white coats to come and collect you. Your delusions would have to be so strong that you would be unable to function in society – although given where you come from, maybe not. You do live in the land of the delusional.

So let’s assume that you aren’t completely delusional. What’s your point again?

Fair question mandas.
Point is
1) that a single data point is irrelevant.
2) by including this point in the trend with context it should be clear that the recent data strengthens the case for mr Craig Thomas.
3) excluding continues the back and forth with no resolution as they talk past each other.

I do miss this, guys. . . Some of my fondest moments were engaging in these threads and watching so-called skeptics print without thought because they are indifferent to being wrong and exposed as such. Life with two two-and-a-half year olds and an increasingly stressful career have robbed me off this joy of late.

Wish I could engage in the fun. I’m just glad my gluttonous country has staved off default for a few more hours and I don’t have to head to the hills with my family and a surfeit of shotgun shells and canned beans–yet. The way things are going I guess it will at least be relatively warm in the mountains.

Mandas/Coby: hope all is well Down Under. It’s heresy I know, but I might just shoot an email to our dear friend Crakar. He too is a Seattle Seahawks fan; we had that one thing in common and my Birds are doing fairly well this year.

Nice to see you are still alive – although I still see the occasional facebook post with your smiling face peering out.

Things are good here. I am currently in the wilds of central Queensland looking at wombats with my wife – doing some research on reproductive behaviour. Much better than sitting in an office.

I have a Seattle Seahawks sweatshirt at home somewhere from years ago. I was on an Air Force visit to Boeing and it was a cold day so I just went into a store to buy something to keep warm. That’s about the extent on my knowledge on the subject.

It was something to go back nearly 5 years and see this debate evolve.

I’d like to add a couple new points and also get an answer to the now known *cycle* I predicted in the early 2000’s that we are now headed into several decades of cooling. Please feel free to address this, as it is also known that co2 continues to rise to levels as high as they’ve been a few million years. I do agree that the additional human emissions is the tipping point too by the way.

It’s widely accepted that we account for about 5% of the emissions and many than equate that this can’t possibly be significant, as nearly 1/2 of that is absorbed/used by the current natural systems it’s estimated. Well that little bit is adding up and certainly will have an impact at some point. I just don’t know what that ‘is’. It appears that there is NOT that connection as once thought of co2 > rise in greenhouse effect > rise in global temps.

The lower levels of the ocean temps are rising yet the surface is cooling, which brings up my next point. For the record it’s estimated volcanoes cause much less than 1% of the co2, and many say a fraction of 1% so that’s just a bad comparison within the argument either way. But, the ocean exchange is over 40% of the co2 emissions and close to equal as a co2 sink…so it’s possible some of this is caused by volcanoes on the ocean floor, but I have not seen any credible studies on this and if these are considered in the fraction of 1% of emissions due to volcanoes. I assume they won’t be leaving volcanic activity accounting for 1/100th of the impact on emissions as anthropogenic emissions.

That said, it still doesn’t account for my initial point, that global temperatures are decreasing and ice caps are expanding. My primary point all along back in the early 2000’s was how truly powerful the earth and it’s biosphere are. I’m not saying over a long enough period we couldn’t damage this balance beyond repair and must continue global efforts to reduce our impact, but it appears that the normal *cycle* is in place as we are in for a few decades of global cooling.

So does this mean HAARP will cease and desist with the chemtrails and Geoengineering?

Your post is a bit factually challenged.
– We are responsible for 200% of *net* CO2 emissions, this is the only relevant metric (see this)
– the ocean surface layer is not cooling
– global temperatures are not decreasing
– ice caps are not expanding

It is pretty critical that any thoughts on a scientific issue be grounded in our best assessment of the facts.

Maybe someone with more knowledge on the subject can weigh in, but I believe, Mark, that there is a known, measured and consistent net energy input which will result, (must result?) in higher global temps. And so the warming continues at a greater pace than ever before.